1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a method for the preliminary and final mounting of a vehicle door and to a vehicle door hinge assembly for effecting such mounting.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, the vehicle doors are secured to the body shell of a vehicle by means of two hinges comprising hinge plates or leaves which are secured to the body shell by welding or screw-fastening the plates.
It has been usual to realign the doors by using large lever arms which lead to deformation of the parts of the body adjacent to the hinge plates, to produce an alignment of the vehicle door with respect to the bodywork opening. With this procedure, undesired stresses and springing back must be accounted for.
The bodywork is altered by the subsequent manufacturing processes, such as the painting process and the final assembly, so that eventually the alignment of the vehicle door with respect to the bodywork opening may no longer be true.
The alignment of a vehicle door with respect to the bodywork opening receiving it becomes even more difficult if the vehicle door has to be removed from the bodywork for the purpose of passing it through a separate painting process and a separate assembly line. In this case alignment of the vehicle door with respect to the bodywork opening has been possible only with expensive, adjustable hinges as disclosed, for example, in the German Offenlegungsschrift (Laid-Open Specification) No. 29 37 166.
A method and an apparatus for the preliminary and/or final mounting of a vehicle door is already known from the German Pat. No. 25 40 856, in which deformable intermediate layers which determine a first position of the vehicle door during the preliminary mounting of the door are arranged on the body shell between the shell and the plates of the hinge. After this preliminary mounting, the body shell together with the vehicle door passes through the entire painting process and the final assembly; and the final mounting, which determines the final position of the door, is then carried out by the application of a greater screwing force.
This known method and this apparatus have the disadvantage that only a limited tolerance compensation, determined by the deformable intermediate layers, is possible.
The invention seeks to find a method and a hinge assembly for the preliminary and/or final mounting of a vehicle door which will make possible the bridging of even more greatly different tolerance positions in a simple manner.
European Patent Publication No. 0 007 177 and German Offenlegungsschrift No. 11 09 047 disclose an idea wherein, in order to mount a vehicle door, hinges comprising hinge plates are aligned by way of stop surfaces or holding devices and are secured in a cavity in the vehicle door by being set in a foam.
In the case of these two known publicaticns, mention is only made in each case of the mounting of the corresponding hinge members on the vehicle door, whereas the fastening of the other hinge members or plates of the hinge must be carried out in known manner on the body shell opening. Consequently, undesired divergencies between the contour of the vehicle door and the contour of the bodywork can again arise.